Fort Myers to explain toxic sludge science to Dunbar residents

Dunbar resident Annie Freeman, 83, talks about the city of Fort Myers dumping toxic sludge in Dunbar more than 50 years ago. “They just didn’t care what was going on in the Black community. Had it been anywhere else, that would’ve been known.
Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com

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“I’m trying to feel what they are feeling,” said Mark Martin about talking with Dunbar residents during a community meeting about Dunbar’s toxic sludge site held last August at Dr. Carrie Robinson Center in Fort Myers. Martin, an engineer with Black and Veatch, was one of several consultants the city provided to answer residents’ questions. The firm and other experts will try to provide answers again at a workshop this Thursday.(Photo: Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com)Buy Photo

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Fort Myers leaders last week expressed “relief” that residents living near a toxic city dump have science to assure them that its arsenic-laced water treatment sludge poses no danger to them.

The city welcomes them and the general public to a workshop this Thursday to hear how consultants came to that conclusion about the 55-year-old dump site, and to answer questions – which are already being asked in neighbors' living rooms.

“I don’t have a college degree, but I’m no dummy,” South Street resident Bernice Brown said about the determination that the arsenic outside the site didn’t come from the sludge. "If you’ve got arsenic one place and it rains and went to another place, no science can say this over here has nothing to do with that arsenic over there.”

Consultants will try to explain that at the workshop, summarizing three months of tests and a 699-page report for skeptics like Brown.

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“We need to know more,” said Lillian A. Brown during a community meeting about Dunbar’s toxic sludge site on Tuesday at the Dr. Carrie Robinson Center in Fort Myers. Though, the city provided consultants to answer questions, many residents felt the meeting provided little new information.(Photo: Kinfay Moroti/news-press.com)

“I don’t have a college degree, but I’m no dummy.”

South Street resident Bernice Brown

For the city's experts from GFA International and Black and Veatch, it boils down to a “leachability test” – taking a sample piece of the clay-like soil, mixing it with a solution, letting it sit for up to 18 hours, and measuring how much arsenic leaches out.

Hypothetically, the rate of leaching simulates what the sludge in the ground would do.

But even professionals with science backgrounds have the same questions as Brown about the site whose contamination was a secret to most people until a News-Press report last June.

“Are you kidding me?” said geologist Sid Duque of Miami-based Airques, who has also been testing the toxic sludge for residents’ attorneys. “The arsenic is in the soil, it’s
in the groundwater, but it doesn’t come from the site?”

To predict in a day's benchmark test what happens to sludge that’s been sitting for 55 years is,“like a weather forecaster predicting it won’t rain, when you can already see it’s raining outside,” Duque said.

“It’s dangerous to assume without empirical evidence.”

John Cassani, Calusa Waterkeeper

If the arsenic outside the site isn’t coming from the sludge, South Street resident Curt Sheard wants to know, “What's the source?” If it’s something else in the environment, where is the background testing that reflects this claim?”

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Curtis Sheard Dunbar resident, talks about growing up and playing in the area known as Home-a-rama. He wants it to get better, he wants it to get cleaned up, he wants it to be a real park for his community. Sheard stands next to a No Trespassing sign that was put up since The News-Press broke the story of the site in June, 2017, Dunbar residents and(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

Calusa Waterkeeper John Cassani, a freshwater expert, said he would also like to see more evidence to support the city’s theory.

“It’s dangerous to assume without empirical evidence,” Cassani said. “Will they do more tests? Who’s in charge of calling the shots about what they do?”

The Department of Environmental Protection calls the shots, and is expected to issue a statement this week, spokeswoman Dee Ann Miller said.

Asked if the city’s leachability test is enough to satisfy the DEP, “The state cleanup rule determines the leachability of arsenic based on a measurement of groundwater,” Miller said by email.

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Scott McManus, project leader for city consultant GFA International, drops a small hose down the well first well they are testing. He then attaches it to the pump and begins to pull water. The city's sludge site in Dunbar meets its moment of truth as GFA International begins testing for contaminants based on a bigger, better, DEP-approved assessment plan.(Photo: Andrea Melendez/The News-Press)

While the specifics are still to come, Miller’s message was that the arsenic measured in the groundwater tests taken on and off the site are what the agency will look at.

The DEP could call for more frequent tests, as much as weekly, to get a clearer picture of the plume. That would help delineate where and how far the pollution traveled, Duque said; but more tests could increase the city’s liability.

Residents’ real question:
Will you clean it up?

Luetricia Becker, for whom the open dump served as a playground while she was growing up, expressed frustration with the city’s communications.

“Why should I go to the meeting when all they will say is it’s not their fault.”

Luetricia Becker, grew up on South Street

“Why should I go to the meeting when all they will say is it’s not their fault,” Becker said.

“I feel like because we live in the Dunbar community, we’re black, so we get the small end of the stick," her brother John Freeman said.

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Luetricia Becker and her brothers, Edward and Kenneth Freeman live near the City of Fort Myers’ sludge site on South Street. They grew up playing in the orange goo infested parts of the neighborhood. They, like all the residents around them want to see the site cleaned up. (Photo: Andrew West/The News-Press)

“It is a racial thing," their mother Lois Freeman said in the family living room. "We’re black. They’re white. We live across the railroad track. They’re trying to put it on poor black people,”

“We’re black, so we get the small end of the stick.”

Johnny Freeman, grew up on South Street

At 84, Freeman isn't afraid to talk about race, but most people are, she said. That's the conversation she would like to have.

"They know they could get this right, but they let it linger," she said.

Asked what he thinks about cleanup options, Mayor Randy Henderson said he will be out of town for the meeting and deferred News-Press questions to a city spokeswoman.

Councilman Johnny Streets, who represents the Freemans and other South Street neighbors on the City Council, didn’t respond to the News-Press’ email.

The DEP’s regional director, Jon Iglehart, and other staff will attend the residents’ meeting to answer their questions, Miller confirmed.

Iglehart proved helpful at the city’s first meeting in August, several residents said, which otherwise left them mystified and frustrated

The public workshop will be held Thursday, January 25 from 5 to 7 p.m. at the Dr. Carrie D. Robinson Center, 2990 Edison Avenue, Fort Myers.